Yvonne Brunetto, Stephen T.T. Teo, Rodney Farr-Wharton, Kate Shacklock and Art Shriberg
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether management supports police officers adequately, or whether police have to rely on their individual attributes, specifically…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether management supports police officers adequately, or whether police have to rely on their individual attributes, specifically psychological capital (PsyCap), to cope with red tape and stress. Work outcomes/consequences examined were discretionary power, affective commitment and turnover intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional design using a survey-based, self-report strategy was used to collect data from 588 police officers from USA, who are most engaged with the public. The data were analysed using AMOS and a structural model to undertake structural equation modelling.
Findings
Two significant paths were identified Path 1: management support to red tape to discretionary power to affective commitment and turnover intentions; and Path 2: supervisor relationships to PsyCap to stress to affective commitment and turnover intentions. Further, management support predicted PsyCap, red tape and police stressors. Red tape increased police stressors and turnover intentions.
Research limitations/implications
The use of self-report surveys is a limitation, causing common methods bias. Using Harmon’s one-factor post hoc test, the authors were able to provide some assurance that common method bias was of no major concern.
Originality/value
As far as is known, this study is the first to examine, for police officers, how PsyCap impacts upon negative factors (stress and red tape) and enhances positive drivers for employees. Examining the impact of an individual attribute – PsyCap – provides an important piece of the organizational puzzle in explaining the commitment and turnover intentions of police officers. By examining the impact of both organizational and individual factors, there is now more knowledge about the antecedents of police outcomes.
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Kate Shacklock and Yvonne Brunetto
This study aims to conceptualise the notion of “older workers' intentions to continue paid working” (OWICW) and to validate a scale for measuring the impact of work‐related…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to conceptualise the notion of “older workers' intentions to continue paid working” (OWICW) and to validate a scale for measuring the impact of work‐related factors on older workers' intentions to continue in employment.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework for this investigation was the meaning of working (MOW) model. The study uses a cross‐sectional, survey‐based, self‐report strategy to gather data.
Findings
The findings were that OWICW is a function not only of factors previously tested (health and financial factors), but also of four work‐related variables – the importance of working to the individual, the flexibility of working arrangements, the individual's interests outside of work, plus management and organisational factors (such as supervision, bureaucracy and the work environment).
Practical implications
The implications of these findings include providing a framework to begin addressing the challenge of retaining valued older workers so as to attend to the growing shortage of labour across OECD countries.
Originality/value
This paper extends the Meaning of Work model to explain the impact of work‐related factors on the intentions of older workers to continue in employment, and at the individual level of analysis.
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Yvonne Brunetto, Rodney Farr-Wharton and Kate Shacklock
This chapter uses the structural and relational dimension of social capital theory (SCT) as a lens for examining the impact of the supervisor–subordinate relationship on nurses'…
Abstract
This chapter uses the structural and relational dimension of social capital theory (SCT) as a lens for examining the impact of the supervisor–subordinate relationship on nurses' perceptions of the usefulness of their workplace networks, sociability, and affective commitment. A survey was used to collect data from 1,064 Australian nurses.
The findings suggest that nurses rely on very small workplace networks (typically only one other person) with which they have strong ties. Further, in over half of the cases, the supervisor (the Nurse Unit Manager (NUM)) holds the centric position. Moreover, for those nurses who did not include the NUM in their workplace network, their position appears even worse. For example, the usual reason given by nurses for not including the NUM was that the NUM was unavailable. This is a concern for health care management because the past two decades have delivered many changes to the nursing profession, including a reduction in the number of nursing positions and subsequent higher workloads. The consequences suggest that without effective workplace networks, nurses are working under conditions where solving problems is more difficult.
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Andrew Robson and Fiona Robson
– The purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of the key antecedents of leave intention demonstrated by nurses employed in UK National Health Service (NHS).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of the key antecedents of leave intention demonstrated by nurses employed in UK National Health Service (NHS).
Design/methodology/approach
Survey assessment of a sample of 433 nurses employed within the NHS was undertaken, potential relationships relating to both affective commitment and leave intention and work-place experiences assessed through leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived organisational support (POS) have been evaluated quantitatively, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equations modelling (SEM).
Findings
The study indicates that both LMX and POS act as direct antecedents to nurses’ leave intention. Additionally, both LMX and POS in combination, significantly effect employees’ affective commitment, the latter further impacting on employee leave intention. This would suggest that both LMX and POS have a significant role to play in employee leave intention that is partially mediated by affective commitment, further analysis confirming this to be the case.
Research limitations/implications
The sample of nurses is large in absolute terms, permitting the CFA/SEM analysis undertaken, although the data represented only two NHS trusts, hence generalisation across the NHS should be done so cautiously. Various other drivers of leave intention, personal and organisational, have not been assessed here.
Practical implications
The implications of these results are that to safeguard nurse retention, appropriate line manager engagement is crucial, but this requires organisational support that is recognised by the employees, especially to enhance their levels of affective commitment.
Originality/value
This is given by providing NHS-based assessment of the role of both POS and LMX in the realisation of both affective commitment and desire to remain with their current organisations amongst members of the UK nursing profession.
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Timothy Andrew Bentley, Stephen T. Teo, Bevan Catley, Kate Blackwood, Maree Roche and Michael P. O’Driscoll
The engagement and retention of older workers is a major concern for organisations and has been an increasing focus for human resource scholars internationally. Drawing on social…
Abstract
Purpose
The engagement and retention of older workers is a major concern for organisations and has been an increasing focus for human resource scholars internationally. Drawing on social exchange theory (SET), the purpose of this paper is to examine the conditions under which retention and engagement of older workers could be enhanced, together with the potential for perceptions of age discrimination to negatively influence these outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The study surveyed a large sample of New Zealand workers aged 55 years and over from across 28 New Zealand organisations of varying size and from a wide range of industrial sectors. A moderated-mediation model was proposed to examine the relationship between perceived organisational support (POS) and intention to leave, the mediating effect of job engagement in this relationship, and the moderating influence of perceived age discrimination on this mediation.
Findings
While POS was negatively related to workers’ intention to quit, job engagement partially mediated this relationship. Age discrimination moderated this mediation. As perceived age discrimination increased, the mediation of job engagement was weakened as POS had less influence on the job engagement of older workers.
Research limitations/implications
Implications for human resource management practice include the importance of providing organisational support for older workers along with protections from age bias and discrimination.
Originality/value
The study is one of the first to apply SET to the context of older workers, and has extended the SET literature through its examination of the role of employee engagement as a mediator of this relationship, and how perceived age discrimination, as a negative aspect of the work environment, can negatively impact these relationships.
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Tim Bentley, Kate Blackwood, Bevan Catley, Michael O’Driscoll, Maree Roche, Stephen T. T. Teo and Linda Twiname
This paper argues for the need to use multiple sources and methods that respond to research challenges presented by new forms of war. There are methodological constraints and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper argues for the need to use multiple sources and methods that respond to research challenges presented by new forms of war. There are methodological constraints and contention on the superiority given to positivist and interpretivist research designs when doing fieldwork in war situations, hence there is a need to use integrated data generation techniques. The combined effect of severe limitations of movement for both the researcher and researched fragmented data because of polarized views about the causes of the war and unpredictable events that make information hard to come by militate against systematic, organised and robust data generation. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to make fieldwork researchers understand significant research problems unique to war zones.
Design/methodology/approach
This research was guided by the postmodernist mode of thought which challenges standardised research traditions. Fieldwork experiences in Cabo suggest the need to use the composite strategies that rely on the theoretical foundation of integrative and creative collection of data when doing research in violent settings.
Findings
The fieldwork experiences showed that the standardised, conventional and valorised positivist and ethnographic research strategies may not sufficiently facilitate understanding of the dynamics of war. There should not be firm rules, guidelines or regulations governing the actions of the researcher in conflict. As such, doing research in violent settings require reflexivity, flexibility and creativity in research strategies that respond to rapid changes. Research experiences in Mozambique show the need to use blended methods that include even less structured methodologies.
Originality/value
Fieldwork experiences in Cabo challenges researchers who cling to standardised research traditions which often hamper awareness of new postmodernist mode of thought applicable to war settings. It is essential to study the nature of African armed conflicts by combining creativity and flexibility in the selection of research strategies.
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Imon Chowdhooree and Kanu Kumar Das
Mud architecture as one of the expressions of vernacular architecture illustrates the success of indigenous knowledge of traditional communities. Due to the pressure of…
Abstract
Purpose
Mud architecture as one of the expressions of vernacular architecture illustrates the success of indigenous knowledge of traditional communities. Due to the pressure of industrialization, urbanization and globalization, the trend of using non-traditional measures guided by the Western-Euro-centric knowledge and technologies considers the traditional practices as expressions of backward past, under-development and poverty. Though mud as a building material is usually assumed as a fragile and ephemeral material that cannot survive against natural hazards, the surviving traditional mud buildings are needed to be investigated to know their performances during and after different types of natural hazard incidents.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper intends to study the available cases of mud architecture of Chattogram, Bangladesh to trace the history of their survival despite of experiencing multiple natural hazards and to understand their status and prospect of resisting hazards. Three individual homesteads are chosen as cases for conducting physical survey as well as engaging inhabitants and local masons of the locality in semi-structured interviews in a story telling mode to know the construction process and histories of experiencing natural hazards. Available literatures are reviewed, and experts are interviewed to understand the causes of their performances and possible ways to improve the quality.
Findings
Collected information on mud architecture demonstrates their quality of surviving against many natural challenges and this hazard-resilient quality can be enhanced through using contemporary building technologies and materials, promising to co-exist with the global trend.
Originality/value
This study as an attempt to reinvent the vernacular architectural heritage endorses the need of appreciating indigenous knowledge for enhancing community resilience against natural hazards.